sermons to note

Are you a millionaire? Billionaire? Are you really rich? If you are a Christian and have entered into the full benefits and blessings of Christ, you are incredibly, unbelievable rich! God has purposed to make you outstanding rch in and through Him.

A RICH LORD: No one can match the Lord for riches, indeed all belongs to Him. The psalmist affirms the immeasurable wealth of the Lord – Psalm 24:1; 50: 9-12. All that any person possesses is simply loaned to him, yes, also his breath! The Lord is not lacking or without on any front. He is the rightful creator, owner and possessor of all. When any individual gives to Him there is only the giving back which is truly His in the first place. It is He that gives power to make wealth, too.

A RICH GIVER: The Lord is not just simply loaded with immeasurable wealth, He seeks to bless and bestow it upon His creation and creatures so that all can benefit greatly from it. The revelation of Scripture of the Lord is that of a beautiful, bountiful and beneficial Giver. Out of His infinite resource He is willing and capable to enriching all that come to Him to be blessed by Him. He can do this in relation to spiritual blessings – Ephesians 1 or even those of a material kind.

Illustration – Job 42:12.

It is good to recognize those vital areas in which the Lord seeks to enrich and remember that He is consistently the same with regard to this matter – James 1:17.

1/. HE DESIRES TO ENRICH WITH DIVINE PRESENCE – Luke 24: 13-36

The best thing that the Lord could do was to come into this world and enrich the world with His Presence. The incarnation of Jesus Christ is God entering a human body in order to get near to man and to bless Him with His closeness and friendship. He, being with a person or group, makes all the difference. The two men on the road to Emmaus discovered what He could when He drew near! He brings a dynamic lift into life as He joins the relationship.

Illustration: The difference my wife’s presence makes to my home and life is immeasurable

2/. HE DESIRES TO ENRICH WITH DIVINE PROMISES – 2 Corinthians 1:19-22

To those that belong to Him, He has a way of blessing them with untold guarantees that make for the enjoyment of life. They are indeed the promises of God that affirm all the things that He will do for those that have received Him and fall in line with His precepts. To those that are His genuine believers and disciples He assures them of untold good as they follow His directions and disciplines. Love, peace, joy etc., all become available in and through Him.

3/. HE DESIRES TO ENRICH WITH DIVINE FAVOUR AND GRACE – EPHESIANS 1:7

He possesses the power to grant a relationship with the Godhead that initiates into a rich standing of favour and good. He comes according to the riches of His grace to bestow the grace of forgiveness, election, sonship, the sealing and anointing of the Holy Spirit, His headship in life, a dynamic spiritual environment and so on. etc. John speaks as of receiving grace upon grace – John 1:16.

Illustration: Seeking the favour of the king – it made a difference

4/. HE DESIRES TO ENRICH WITH DIVINE LIFE – JOHN 3:16

A major factor is to be the recipient of eternal life and this none other than the same quality life of God. Natural life must possess the very essence of the divine spirit and nature if it is be lived sublimely and prosperously. Sin cut man off originally from the life of God. The Lord has come to restore the lie-line and make it possible to draw upon the life of God. Without the Lord, man simply exists at a natural level and only knows the extent of this world to a degree. But the Lord has come to switch on life in its truest and fullest sense – John 10:10.

Man, to a great extent is mortified with a sense of fear and lacks in many areas to live a life of true divine fulfilment and satisfaction. The Lord has the capacity to bestow the faith to live and to bless with abilities that enable the life and work to be useful and highly productive. The Bible is full of people that received from God the faith to believe and the power to perform and to achieve incredible things. It happened to old and young. Abraham was 75 when he started to receive faith and exercise it and David was but a youth when he knew the faith of God in his being. And what powers became theirs as the Lord enriched!

Questions that troubled me: Why am I? and “What should I be doing whilst I am here?!

One thing that the Lord endeavours to do for those who come to know Him and that is to give a sense of destiny. He makes clear that life should have a significant and noble design and intention through it and this should not be lost or missed. To Jeremiah He makes known that before he was born he was destined to be a prophet of the Lord, bringing divine revelation of a unique order to his day and generation. To Paul, there is the knowledge he had been singled out to become a great missionary-preacher of all time and a pattern to succeeding generations of what the Lord’s grace and gift could do – 1 Timothy 1:18.

7/. HE DESIRES TO ENRICH WITH DIVINE HOPE – 1 Peter 1:3

Certainly this applies to man’s eternal future and prospect – 1 Corinthians 15. It is not enough to have hope and certainty with regard to this world and life – v19. He offers the broad scope and prospect of eternity that assures of a future that will be pleasurable, profitable and without end. There is an inheritance yet to be possessed of infinite worth.

CONCLUSION

The simple thing is: make sure that one knows the Lord and that life is enriched by Him at all levels.

From this day forward He wills to make a difference to you and your affairs.